


Number Two

by CarpeDiemForLife



Series: The Loneliest Number [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26023150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpeDiemForLife/pseuds/CarpeDiemForLife
Summary: All of the Hargreeves children know what it is to be lonely. It claims them each in different ways and at different times, but loneliness is the family's constant companion.--Series of ficlets examining the loneliness of each character. Second: Diego.
Series: The Loneliest Number [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1885654
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	Number Two

Diego knew well the loneliness of being different, and learned in time to turn his loneliness into a shield rather than a barrier.

Even in his family of misfits, Diego was the odd one out. As if his comparatively unimpressive superpower wasn’t enough, there was, of course, the matter of his stutter. As a child he spent most of his time with their mom. She taught him how to visualize the word he was trying to say and coached him until he’d all but lost that damned stutter, that defect which kept him apart from his siblings in the first place.

Their mom, Grace, was a robot. Though all his siblings loved Grace too, they seemed to care more about her robotic nature than Diego did.

 _Mama’s boy_ , they would tease him, meaning something entirely different. Meaning that he was strange or stupid for loving her like he did.

So even after his stutter was gone, he found that he was still separate from his family. Unable to make those connections they all seemed to have formed with each other. As if to spite them, he loved their mom even harder, and stayed by her side whenever he could.

Sometimes, after Five left, Diego noticed that he wasn’t the only lonely one.

Vanya. Five and Ben had been her best friends. Now Five was gone and Ben… Diego didn’t know why, but Ben had started hanging out with Klaus instead, leaving Vanya all alone. Did they have a fight? Diego didn’t know. Sometimes he wanted to approach Vanya, to make overtures of friendship, to say, _Hey, I’m lonely too_.

Except Vanya never looked twice at him anymore. Or at any of them. She kept to herself and her violin and never tried to hang out with them, or talk to them, or even look them in the eye. Diego began to wonder… _was_ she lonely?

Or just alone?

Every time he gathered the courage to reach out, she passed by him as though he were a ghost, his gaze left unanswered, a question stuttering on his lips, and his courage shriveled up in his chest and died. Each time he felt sadder and lonelier than ever.

Still, he always felt somehow that he and Vanya could have been close. _Should_ have been close. His feelings for her were as close to real kinship as he’d ever felt.

Then she published a book.

Diego was well-liked. Popular, one might even say. He got on well with the other cadets at police training. He had healthy, long-term relationships. Everyone at the boxing gym knew his name and threw him smiles and friendly punches whenever he walked in.

No one saw his loneliness. Because Diego had grown up lonelier than anyone knew, and he’d long since learned how to make connections without ever really making a connection. How to smile and to laugh and to flirt, all while hiding the empty hole in his chest. After Vanya’s book, he refused to ever let anyone get a hold of his heart again.

Even if his junkie brother could still sometimes get a begrudging smile out of him.


End file.
